Ceramic armors are known. However, previous armors are much too heavy or too bulky or too expensive or they do not provide sufficient protection or any protection against large caliber projectiles. Traditional soft armor used in many types of protective vests are typically made of layers of flexible fabric or non-woven textile using fibers such as aramid (such as Kevlar® or Twaron®) or polyethylene (such as Spectra Shield® or Dyneema®) or other types of fibers. When a bullet strikes these layered armors, the impact produces a bulge which deforms the back surface of the armor. Since the armor is worn adjacent to the body, this bulge, or deformation, projects into the body of the wearer which can cause tissue damage or trauma to the underlaying body part.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,534,343 teaches the use of an inner layer of flexible cellular material in a flexible armor.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,349,893 discloses a ceramic armor having an inner layer of rigid, semi-flexible or semi-rigid cellular material.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,847,308 issued to Singh et al. teaches a passive roof armor system which includes a stack of ceramic tiles and glass layers.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,203,908 issued to Cohen is directed to an armor having an outer steel layer, layers of high density ceramic bodies bonded together, and an inner layer of high-strength anti-ballistic fibres such as KEVLAR™.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,135,006 issued to Strasser et al. discloses a multi-layer composite armor which includes alternating hard and ductile layers formed of fiber-reinforced ceramic matrix composite.
Canadian Patent application Serial No. 2,404,739 to Lucuta et al. discloses a multi-layer ceramic armor with improved ceramic components to deflect a projectile on impact, bonded to a shock absorbing layer constructed of a polymer-fiber composite material, and further bonded to a backing of ballistic composite or metallic material. In the designs presented by Lucuta et al. all ceramic materials are backed by: polymer-fiber composite, additional ceramic components, or polymeric components while the current design uses a metallic layer directly bonded to the ceramic. The backing layer in traditional armour is made of a ballistic composite material. Lucuta et al. claim the use of a ballistic composite or metallic layer.
United States Patent Publication No. US2004/0118271A1 to Puckett et al. is directed to reducing the impact of armor deformation by reducing the peak load using a trauma reduction layer such as cellular honeycomb urethane materials. The current design proposes the use of a polymeric layer between the armor and wearer to further reduce the impact, and this process is generally known and used in the armor industry.
Therefore there is a need for an armor that overcomes that provides better protection to underlying tissue and organs of the person wearing the armor.